Rudolf II was born in
Rheinfelden,
Swabia, the youngest son of Count
Rudolf of Habsburg and his first wife
Gertrude of Hohenberg to survive infancy. In 1273 his father was elected
king of Germany, the first of the Habsburg dynasty, whereafter he seized the "princeless" duchies of
Austria,
Styria and
Carinthia from the Bohemian king
Ottokar II. After King Ottokar was defeated and killed in the 1278
Battle on the Marchfeld, King Rudolf in December 1282 vested his sons Albert and Rudolf II with the Austrian and Styrian duchies. However, in the
Treaty of Rheinfelden on 1 June 1283 Rudolf II had to relinquish his share in favour of his elder brother Albert. In compensation Rudolf II was designated as future king and his father appointed him a "
duke of Swabia" - more or less an honorific title, as the former
stem duchy had been in long-term disarray after the last
Hohenstaufen duke, the underage
Conradin, was killed in 1268. In Swabia the former counts of Habsburg only held various smaller home territories, later summed up as
Further Austria, of which Rudolf II never got hold. In the course of the reconciliation process with the Bohemian
Přemyslid dynasty, Rudolf II in 1289 married
Agnes of Bohemia, Duchess of Austria (1269-1296), daughter of the late King Ottokar II. Rudolf II died suddenly at the age of 20 in
Prague, where he stayed at the court of his brother-in-law King
Wenceslaus II. In the same year his son,
John Parricida, was born. His brother's failure to ensure that Rudolf II would be adequately compensated for relinquishing his claim on the throne caused strife in the Habsburg dynasty, leading to the assassination of Albert I by Rudolph's son, John, in 1308. ==References==